With the festive season mere months away, most people will be snapping away those special moments on a smartphone.

Today’s smartphone cameras take incredible photographs. Most high end mobile devices come standard with an 8 MP camera. Most of those devices can shoot video in HD.

The problem with taking pictures with a phone is that sometimes they do not take great photographs in low light conditions and the flash tends to work better in smaller areas. It should be mentioned that newer generation devices come with great sensors that take decent photographs in low light conditions.

For most of us though, we are taking photos on our phones instantaneously and we want to share it immediately with friends and post them on social networks. There are some great apps out there that will help you improve the quality and even jazz up your photographs, as well as adding a bit of fun to them.

So as you head out this festive season make sure you have these apps on your smartphone and get the most out of your photographs.  

Instagram

Instagram remains a firm favourite for most smartphone users. There are more than one billion people using Instagram and over 95 million photographs are uploaded daily via mobile data connections or wireless internet. This app allows you to add fun filters to your photographs and completely transform the look and feel of a picture. What is also great about this app is that integrates well into social networks and posting a picture instantly to Facebook or Twitter is done instantly on your timeline. Looking to get that retro feel or a 60’s look to your photos? Check out Instagram.

http://instagram.com/

Diptic

Diptic is one of my favourite apps. How many times are you in a situation where you want to combine more than one photo in one picture? Sometimes it takes a few pictures to tell a story. This is what Diptic does amazingly well. The app has 52 different layouts to choose from. Simply open the app tap the layout you want and add the photographs. You can also add effects and different borders. You can even tweak the brightness and saturation of your picture. When you are done editing, save, and export to most to social networks.

http://www.dipticapp.com/

Microsoft Pix Camera

Microsoft’s Photosynth app was one of the coolest apps around. It allowed you to capture a 360 degree photograph and share it with your friends. It was discontinued as a standalone app in 2017 and integrated into the Microsoft Pix Camera app for iOS. To use this feature, you simply stand in one position and move clockwise following the onscreen instructions, and in a few seconds you have an amazing panorama picture. The app does all the processing and stitching so all you need to do is choose the moment you want to capture. Post it on the web, send the link to your friends and on their computer they can navigate the picture, zoom in and out and they will feel that they are “almost” there with you.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftpix

Photoshop Express Editor

Photoshop Express Editor is a mini Photoshop for smartphones and for the more serious photo enthusiasts. This is a really powerful app that allows users to really tweak photographs. Photo came out to dark? No problem with Express Editor. The auto correct feature also works very well and often saves the day on that one picture you might have shot incorrectly. It also has a fun element like pixelating a photo and even adding captions and speech bubbles.

http://www.photoshop.com/tools/expresseditor

Snapseed

The award winning Snapseed is another awesome app that is so easy to use, yet it has such powerful results. Adjusting images is done by simply swiping you finger across to the right or to the left of the screen or selecting your setting by moving up or down. You can get really creative using this very powerful app and at the same time having a great deal of fun. There are also some very cool filters that will completely transform your pictures.

http://www.snapseed.com/

Get the most from your smartphone camera and perfect the creative vision of your photographs with these fun apps.  Remember that if you use internet solutions like fibre internet, you can enjoy a faster and better download/upload experience. Happy snapping!